For all Minnesotans

• • Stay informed. Visit the MDH and CDC websites often. 
  • CDC: Coronavirus Disease 2019 Information for Travel
    CDC provides travel guidance, including recommendations for avoiding non-essential travel or practicing enhanced precautions.
  • If you recently returned from a country with a COVID-19 outbreak and are feeling sick, call your health care provider and tell them where you traveled and what symptoms you are experiencing. See Information for Travelers on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) for additional guidance that travelers or their families may want to know. 
  • Avoid showing prejudice to Minnesotans of Asian descent or assuming that someone of Asian descent is more likely to have COVID-19.
  • At this point, CDC does not recommend the use of facemasks as a preventive measure for the general public. Facemasks are typically used in clinical settings to prevent spread of diseases from ill patients to health care workers who are in close contact with them. 
  • There is currently no vaccine to prevent COVID-19; however, research is underway. 
  • CDC: Community Mitigation Guidance for COVID-19 Response in the United States: Nonpharmaceutical Interventions for Community Preparedness and Outbreak Response
    NPIs are public health actions that can slow the spread of emerging respiratory diseases like COVID-19 for which vaccines and drug treatments are not yet available

• Preparedness Tips

• Think about backup plans for child care when a school is temporarily closed or when parents, children, or a child care provider is sick. 
• Think about necessary items to have at home, including prescription medicines (check your refill dates), and non-prescription medications, such as fever-reducing medications.
• While it is less likely in a mild to moderate outbreak that we would see shortages of food in stores, health officials suggest that people gradually build up at-home supplies of non-perishable foods over the course of the next few weeks. This may help make it easier to stay home if you or a family member becomes sick, or if you want to avoid sick people during more intense waves of transmission at various times in a given community.
• Ready.gov
  More guidance on preparing yourself and your family.
• Behavioral Health and Emergency Preparedness
  Look for the Managing Stress and the Threat of COVID-19 on this page to understand stress reactions and increase your ability to cope during a public health emergency.
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• To read more information on the virus and see the latest updates, follow this link to the MDH website.  https://www.health.state.mn.us/diseases/coronavirus/prevention.html#mn